I started out Saturday morning with this recipe for spicy pork and sweet potato stew, which sounded lovely because IT IS COLDER THAN BALLS HERE. I got to thinking that I really wanted to put it on something – potatoes were the initial thought, except that sweet potato anything on top of potatoes sucks in my book, so I decided on grits. Cheddar grits, to be exact. Because there were grits, I decided to dump the corn, and then decided to make it healthier by adding black beans and kale, because kale. And then I added cinnamon while I was cooking because I felt it needed cinnamon, and we find ourselves with this new-ish creation. I’m posting it as much for me as for y’all – if I were to forget how I made this, I’m would cry, so I’m preventing future tears.

Swirl roughly a tablespoon of olive oil* into the bottom of a really big dutch oven or stock pot or whatever it is you usually make soup in. Don’t worry about being exact – this is soup. It doesn’t matter. It will work out. When the oil gets nice and hot (say medium-high heat if you need to know), brown the pork on all sides, doing it in batches if necessary to make sure the pan doesn’t get too crowded. Pull the pork out and set aside.

Swirl another tablespoon-ish of oil into the pan. Drop the heat back to medium and toss in the onions and garlic. Stir it frequently until they’re pretty and golden and soft. Toss in all of the spices, swirl them in with the onions, and let them toast for a moment. Then toss in the peppers and the extra adobo sauce, stir again, and let everything get to know each other for a minute or two. Then pour in the cider and stir, scraping the bottom of the pan for any little caramelized bits of goodness that haven’t already been picked up. Pour in the veggie stock, add in the sweet potatoes, flop a lid on that thing and proceed to let it simmer for the next hour. Stir when you get bored and want a face full of happy smell.

After the hour is up, throw in the black beans and kale, and proceed to ignore it again for another hour. I left the lid on but gave it a pretty big vent this time to let some steam out.

Once the time is up, the liquid level should be lower and the smell should be glorious. Throw in the greek yogurt and stir until it dissolves. Then slowly, while stirring, drizzle in the cornstarch, and let it boil while you stir until everything thickens. Taste for seasoning, and call it good.

GRITS:
If you decide, like I did, that what this thing needs is to sit on a pile of grits, get yourself 6 cups of water in a large pot, add about a tablespoon of salt, a few dashes of cayenne, a bay leaf, some thyme or sage if you have some hanging out, boil it, add 2 cups of corn grits SLOWLY AND WHILE WHISKING, and then turn the heat down and stir it with a heavy duty wooden spoon while it bubbles and glops away (try not to get hit with any spatters – that HURTS). When the water has been absorbed and it more or less tastes like cooked grits, add a few pats of butter and something like a half cup (or full cup, or more – not judging here) of cheddar and a splash or two of milk. Stir until it’s all awesome and melted.

To get something looking like the picture above, I threw a few huge spoonfuls of grits into my bowl and ladled stew all over it. And then took a picture. And then stuffed it in my face. SO. GOOD.

*it totally occurred to me later that it would be really fun to fry a couple of slices of bacon to render the fat out of it and then brown the pork in that. I haven’t tried it yet, but seriously. It has to be awesome, so I totally suggest trying that if you have bacon lying around.

So what happened, at first anyway, was that I got bored. I felt like I was basically writing the same thing over and over and over (i.e., “this wine smells like plums and tastes like purple and yum” or whatever) and dropped off of posting without realizing it consciously. And then it was summer. And there was a lot of gin, because it was summer, and that’s what people should drink in the summer because it’s wonderful. And we went to California and came back and I was mentally planning a lengthy post about the glories of Russian River Brewing (because seriously)(because we spent our time in wine country drinking beer)(because beer) and it was starting to come together in my head when I realized I was crazy CRAZY like really abnormally tired. So I thought about it, thought about it some more, checked a date, thought about it, psyched myself up, peed on a stick, and BOOM. PREGNANT. (Because gin, probably.) So I thought about it and determined that, all told, alcohol reviews were probably not what I needed to be writing for a while, and let the accidental hiatus continue unabated.

Fast forward a very long while. The kid is now almost eight months old HOW DID THAT HAPPEN I ASK YOU HOOOWWWWW and I’ve found something vaguely approaching normalcy. That said, I don’t drink as much as I did before baby, nor do I have the inclination to. I. Just. THERE ARE THINGS THAT NEED DONE AND THINGS I WANT TO DO and drinking a beer or glass of wine is one thing I want to do *many* days, but not, like, two things I want to do *every* day. Upshot: I don’t have quite as many possible topics as I used to because I’m just not drinking them. HOWEVER. I do generally cook like all the damned time, because food is several things that I very much DO want to do every day.

SO. I came to a decision. I’m going back to blogging, because I loffs it like pizza and missed it lots and lots. There will totally be beer and wine reviews, because those are fun when I’m in the mood and find something really good that I want to blather about. But there are going to be many, many more recipes. Mostly food, sometimes cocktails. There will probably be a redesign, and I’ve been contemplating a name change, so just be aware. I’ll keep y’all posted.

So as that all goes, just know that you’re fabulous for reading this far, and that I appreciate the hell out of you for reading this far and for somehow making sure that I’m still getting blog traffic even though it’s been a long time since I’ve updated. Smooches. You are awesome.

OMGOMGOMG THERE’S A NEW MICHAEL DAVID WINE THIS IS LIKE CHRISTMAS Y’ALL

PLUS THE LABEL IS THE BEST. THING. EVER.:

And these guys do Petite Petit, which has elephants playing poker on the label, so. What I’m saying is that they’ve set the bar for kickass label pretty high.

They’ve set the bar for lots of asskicking pretty high, honestly, or maybe I just love them because I love the wavelength they’re on: any winery what decides it’s a good idea to create a Zinfandel for each deadly sin is a winery I’m going to love on geek level alone. That the wines are, by pretty much any measure, REALLY GOOD, just adds to the pot.

Region: Lodi, CAGrapes involved: Cab Sauv with a tiny bit of Petite Sirah thrown in because, well, why not. Also it’s pretty.Cost: $18-ishFood pairings: We had it with flat iron steak with a chimichurri sauce and some chard sauteed with garlic. That worked. A kickass burger would work pretty well too. So would chocolate. Or oatmeal raisin cookies, which I had for dessert and which were also randomly awesome with the wine.

The wine smells like cherry compote (minus the sugar – think warm, saucy, tart cherries) and berries (mostly raspberry and cranberry) with bits of clove and anise. Drinking it, it goes into tart cranberries and lots of earthen sorts of tones, with gobs of vanilla and oak running through. There are a few hints of fennel and something fun and herbal – I keep returning to sage – as well. The finish is long and tart and dry and wonderful. The tannins are fairly grippy* at first, but soften after a while.

And it’s pretty much awesome, and it pretty much lives up to the label. Like, I’d sum up more, but I want to go back to drinking it.

So, Michael David, keep on keeping on. YOU KICK COPIOUS QUANTITIES OF ASS AND I DO THANK YOU FOR IT.

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*”Grippy” is one of those words to describe wines/tannins that used to make me insane (like, what kind of a douchebag says that sort of thing?**”), but which I’ve decided I kind of like now that I’ve had enough wine to really get what it means. Basically, it’s the sort of tannin structure that really glues your tongue to your teeth or the roof of your mouth. For me, anyway, a “grippy” sort of tannin structure would be the kind of thing that feels like scratchy glue, but not unpleasantly so. To contrast it, a California Syrah would be silken, with no real scratching at all, and a Willamette Valley Pinot Noir would feel like sandpaper – all scratch with no stick. So “grippy” is somewhere in there, just a bit stickier than anything I’ve just thrown out.

Like this:

So first, my apologies for taking a month to write another post. The end of February was filled with craziness (read: my 32nd birthday) and March got off to a smashing start when I managed to slice my thumb open with a dull boxcutter blade and ended up in the hospital getting stitches. Plus there’s been basketball, and as a University of Kansas alum, it’s something akin to a religious experience.

That said, I got the stitches out today, so I popped a bottle of wine when I got home. Here’s what I’m sipping right now:

Region: Monterey County, CAGrapes involved: Merlot, Cab Sauv and SyrahCost: $12-ishFood pairings: The first thing that comes to mind is a turkey sandwich. You’ll see why. Otherwise, go for something that would work with a slightly sweeter red (*not* a *sweet* red, but an off-dry-ish red), like brie covered in berries or something. Plus, I’ve got this sort of obsession with any kind of Syrah blend and a hunk of fresh mozzarella. I don’t know, it’s just lovely.

The wine, if it isn’t apparent in the photo, is a nifty pretty sort of mulberry color, bright and rich and jewel toned. It smells like cherries, carnations, a hint of pepper and lots of berries. It’s a fairly fruit-forward scent – not the raspberry jam bomb of a lot of Zins, but still pretty fruity.

Tasting it, I get cranberry jelly. Absolute, total, no-questions-asked cranberry jelly. Hence the desire to put this with a turkey sandwich: my first few sips made me think of Thanksgiving like woah.* It’s got all the components: tons and tons of bright, tart, very red berry, a hint of clove and allspice, the barest hint of cinnamon, something reminiscent of orange peel. It’s backed up by a hint of vanilla (read: oak), a touch of rose petal and a bit of strawberry and red raspberry. The mouthfeel is soft and luscious and medium-bodied.

So this is pretty much the consummate red blend that’s uber-popular right now. It’s bright and fruit-forward, slightly (but not overly) sweet, has very soft tannins, and is possessed of the requisite (sorry, y’all) annoying name.**

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*I missed Thanksgiving last year due to a badly-timed massive stomach bug, the details of which I won’t share here. So thinking of Thanksgiving makes me alternately really happy (because it’s my favorite holiday ever) and slightly sad (because I missed stuffing my facehole with stuffing last year and I still have 8 months to wait before the next Thanksgiving facehole-stuffing extravaganza).

**I’m not kidding. Red Blends have some positively nonsensical names: Apothic, Hey Mambo, Rex Goliath Free Range Red, and (I wish I were kidding) Yellowtail Sweet Red Roo (y’all, my head about exploded. That said, the label resembles a bright red disco ball, and I am totally on board with that). I never thought I’d love Blackstone for anything, but the fact that they’ve named their red blend nothing more than “Red Blend” makes me adore them right now.

Make this viral:

Like this:

Boulevard announced today that after running some quality checks, they’re offering refunds on a few batches of Chocolate Ale for not meeting standards. Here’s the link to their website with the full (written) explanation of how to check to see if you’ve got an affected bottle and, if so, how to go about getting a refund.

Gotta say, I love Boulevard for paying attention and making sure that the beer they’re selling is exactly the beer they want to be selling.

Like this:

This is my ode* to the best wine I’ve ever had during a meeting at work ever.

Region: Lodi, CaliforniaGrapes involved:Cost: $15 -ishFood pairings: My favorite pairing when I had it at home was with a ball of fresh mozzarella which Tony and I were gingerly tearing apart with our fingers. That said, it would be awesome with chocolate, maybe even white chocolate.

The thing with product meetings in the wine world is that they sound all fun and games (you mean I can sit on my ass and drink wine? at 9am? and get paid?? YES PLEASE) until I’m sitting in the midst of one, struck with the realization that an eight-hour meeting about wine is still fundamentally an eight-hour meeting. After a while, the wines all begin to smell and taste the same, to blend together until a Zinfandel tastes like a Malbec tastes like a Pinot Grigio tastes like a Gewurtztraminer. I rarely remember any wines all that clearly from these meetings, relying instead on what tasting notes I’m able to scribble to myself while I sip. Five hours in, it takes something spellbinding to elicit any response more detailed than “yep, that’s wine.”

I have now met spellbinding, and it is this Syrah.

See, I don’t remember how long we’d been in that particular product meeting. I know that we’d been sitting/sipping for a long time, well past the “yep, that’s wine” point. The supplier was passing two wines around the room. I don’t remember what the first bottle was, except that it was cooked, an unsurprising problem given we were coming off a particularly nasty stretch of Kansas summer (in this case, three weeks of 40˚C + temperatures).* And I remember not much caring that the first wine was cooked, because the next wine was so blindingly fuckamazing that I lost track of everything else in the room.

I ended that meeting with “’08 6th Sense Syrah” writ large in my notes, doodled hearts and flowers surrounding it (because I am apparently a 16-year-old girl), making a mental promise to myself to buy a bottle once it cooled off – this is emphatically a cold weather wine – to discover what it was that made my tastebuds fall all over themselves swooning.

What I discovered is that this particular Syrah is the musical equivalent of the Cure’s Disintegration. It is oodles of black lace and a plum velvet corset, floor-length skirt, combat boots, all black eyeliner and elegant wit. I imagine it to have an endless affection for the novels of the Bronte sisters. It is, flat out, the gothiest wine I have ever had. See?

What I’m trying to say is that this wine, it’s purple (and see? It is!). It smells like violets and plums and blackberry tea with a tinge of black olive and black pepper, and it tastes like all of that plus little bits of earthen mushrooms and blackcurrant and milk chocolate and spun sugar. The mouthfeel is smooth and soft, lightly acidic, round and full and luxurious.

DRINK IT. If you can’t find the ’08, start looking around for the 2010. The early press has been awesome. I’ll be snagging a comparison bottle soon.

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*Right, so I get that this isn’t a proper ode. I know what an ode is (my collegiate learnings were most of the English Lit variety), and I don’t care that reappropriating the term. I suck at poetry, so this is better than any legit ode I could ever write.

Like this:

Boulevard’s Chocolate Ale should be hitting store shelves along about January 31st. If things proceed as they did last year, expect every liquor store in town to be sold out by roughly noon that same day.

What I’m saying is that you may want to plan on an early lunch, a long lunch, a random doctor’s appointment that morning, etc., if you want to be certain to get your hands on some. I’ll tweet if I see/hear of any on any shelves earlier than January 31st.

See, when I was a snot-nosed know-it-all in college, I had a bad experience with Merlot. I took that bad experience with that one bottle to mean that *all* Merlot sucked – so much so that when Sideways managed to damage Merlot sales for years with one throwaway line,* I was proud of myself for already hating Merlot as though I had any idea what I was talking about.**

Then, roughly 10 months ago, I had a bottle of Emmolo Merlot, and discovered that I don’t hate all Merlot. Apparently I like relatively pricey Merlot quite a bit. Even after the Emmolo, however, I thought I still hated cheap Merlot – like my sudden affection for one not-cheap bottle (two, actually: the L’Ecole 31 Merlot is bloody beautiful as well) meant that the only Merlot worth drinking was Merlot I couldn’t normally afford.

Turns out I was wrong again. I don’t hate cheap Merlot either. I just hate bad Merlot.

So here’s a good Merlot that’s also affordable.

Bottle shot:

and the semi-obligatory photo of the light on my kitchen ceiling as seen through a 5oz pour of this wine in my 16oz glass:

Region: Monterey County, CAGrapes involved: MerlotCost: $12-$15 -ishFood pairings: Do what I did and have it with baguette, mozzarella and duck skin. Or, you know, don’t. But duck would work, especially if in confit form and dumped on top of a huge pile of spring greens or any other kind of fun lettuce-y stuff you’re into.

So what makes an affordable Merlot not suck? It’s pretty much everything here.

The wine smells like this huge pile of plum, bright tart cherry, violet leaf, and a touch of leather(!)*** and chocolate. Bittersweet, very dark chocolate. The longer it aerates, the more the plummy cherry scents come out to play. That said, it never goes fruit bomb, either – there’s a definitely balance between the fruity aspects and the other notes.

Flavor-wise, there’s an initial hit of milk chocolate before everything else hits , which is really fun – I was put in the mind of a Hershey’s Kiss for a moment. After that first moment, it blows up into bright red tart cherries and plum – bright and acidic – before softening again into violet, violet leaf, and a bit of garden soil. This is a medium-bodied wine with fairly firm tannins that balance well with the acidity and an alcoholic sort of brightness – yet it does all of that with a bit of softness, if that makes ANY sense whatsoever. The finish is long and reminiscent of really tart green apples that have been lightly dusted in violet sugar.

So there you go: inexpensive Merlot that is also awesome Merlot. I spent a solid decade of my life thinking such a thing was an impossibility. I’m really happy to have been proven wrong.

And PJ, enjoy your new job. They’re effing lucky to have you.

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*from the film:Jack: If they want to drink Merlot, we’re drinking Merlot.Miles Raymond: No, if anyone orders Merlot, I’m leaving. I am NOT drinking any fucking Merlot!
…Miles then proceeds to spend the rest of the film extolling the virtues of Pinot Noir in spite of because of its general pain in the ass level, because Miles is like that.
**yeah, I can be hipster like that. It’s not pretty.
***leather scents in wine are so, so awesome ❤

Like this:

I* can’t give you one of the pretty “wine as seen from below” pics because attempting to do so caused me to drop my phone, which snapped itself into a bunch of pieces on the kitchen floor, which in turn made me decide that I wasn’t in the mood to fuss with it. That said, the wine is somewhere between a ruby and garnet sort of red, and the label looks like this:

Region: Carneros (a fogged-in area of Napa and Sonoma Counties)Grapes involved: 100% Pinot NoirCost: $25ishFood pairings: it’s a Pinot Noir, so as far as I’m concerned, pretty much anything goes that isn’t a giant slab of steak (because if you are eating a giant slab of steak and doing without either Cab Sauv, Malbec, or a heavy-duty stout, you are depriving yourself of one of life’s great experiences). That said, I had it with penne a la vodka, which worked pretty much fine. This would be fantastic with salmon, bittersweet chocolate, anything with wild mushrooms, and a lot of those “I don’t know what the hell to pair with it, but I’d like a red wine rather than a white” type dishes (realizing, of course, that the complementary style of white-what-goes-with-anything would be a dry-ish Riesling).

I love Pinots because they, like, they pretty much smell and taste like *everything*. So whereas a “normal” wine is a combination of a bunch of fruits, a bit of spice and a flower or two, a good Pinot Noir is a combination of all that *plus* cough drops *plus* garden soil *plus* old brown leather jacket *plus* pipe tobacco. And they have (at least in my experience) a strangely specific thin-ish and slightly scratchy mouthfeel to boot. That said, if your Pinot Noir is a basic combination of fruits and a touch of spice and has a smooth, soft mouthfeel, chances are there’s another varietal taking up space in your bottle. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s just a thing.

Anyway.

This particular Pinot Noir (of which I’ve had a touch more than a little) smells like strawberry, rose petal, carnation, watermelon, a touch of menthol, cherry, a hint of pink pepper, a touch of plum and a bit of vanilla. There’s maybe even something herbal, slightly sage-like, blended in with the menthol. It starts out quite tart and then softens as it sits, almost like it’s developing a layer of cotton candy over the top. (This does *not* mean it smells sweet.)(And yes, I do recognize that this is a contradiction, but this is also why I love Pinots.)

Flavor-wise, take a combination of slightly underripe strawberries and some tart green apples and throw it on a pile of wet dirt, rose petals, raspberries, green tea, mulberries and leather and then give it a mouthfeel that is oddly reminiscent of dandelion greens (but pretty much awesome). It’s lightweight and crisp and only lightly scratchy, and the aftertaste is long and almost straight red apple (like a Macintosh or a Jonathan). Or maybe apple cola – the longer I let it hang out before taking another sip, the more I find a cola note. Specifically Coca Cola instead of Pepsi.

So that’s that. I hope your 2011 ended happily and that your 2012 is off to a banging start. Smooches, y’all.

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*In true blogger fashion, I ought to give you some sort of excuse as to why I haven’t been around, some sort of rounding-out-of-2011 sort of thoughts, and some sort of welcome-to-the-new-year sort of thoughts. Suffice it to say that the end of 2011 was extremely flipping busy (because the holidays are when everyone in this country feels it something akin to their patriotic and economic and familial duty to drink a LOT of wine) and that I’ve spent the first week and a half of 2012 working, catching up on sleep, sitting in product meetings and generally letting my brain return to some semblance of its normal (if it has one) self. That said, we’ll continue with reviews in an otherwise uninterrupted fashion unless some sort of after-2am drunkeness inspires me to write some sort of “how 2011 changed my winedrinking life and made my career fabulous and interesting”-type navelgazing post.
For your sake and for the sake of my hit count, I hope I don’t get that drunk. I can navelgaze with the best of them, but I doubt anyone else really wants to read it. This isn’t a livejournal.

Region: LodiGrapes involved: Zinfandel with some Petite Sirah and Petit Verdot thrown inCost: $15-17 or soFood pairings: BBQ. Seriously, people, pork. If you’ve never had pork and Zinfandel (which the wordpress spellchecker is trying to correct to “infidel,” which tickles me) paired together, and you eat meat, GET ON THIS. Lesse. Other than pork-based products, this would be dreamy with, erm, well, everything. Right now I kind of wish I had a piece of chocolate cheesecake to go with it – there’s just enough acid that it would cut through the creaminess perfectly.Rating: 90 – Robert Parker*

It smells really bramble-y, like walking through a patch of raspberry bushes while stuffing your face with the fruit. There are a few hints of spice running around as well. Then, after it’s had a few minutes longer to aerate, it develops a caramelly-butterscotch sort of tone before going straight to brown sugar and then throwing in some pink pepper for laughs. Through all of this, there’s still a strong raspberry scent (like, red RED raspberry)(jammy raspberry)(like the sort of raspberry jam that I love smearing all over hot biscuits). The nose is all kinds of layered, and every time I think I’ve figured it out, it throws something else at me.

Y’all, I squealed at this wine. I am not proud, but there it is.

First up on the taste buds is some sort of jammy raspberry-cranberry concoction (again, something I want to slather on a biscuit). That said, it’s not sweet. Not at all. It’s dry in the way that organic cranberry juice is dry – tannic and tart. But it’s still raspberry. And cranberry. And bramble-y. And all sorts of other things – my brain ran through cherry, carnation, pink pepper, rose, bright red-violet (like the Crayola crayon color), butterscotch, vanilla, black pepper, sharp little twigs, dried leaves and mulling spices before half-swooning in happy exhaustion. It’s super-full-bodied, the type of wine that I love running my tongue through because it just feels neat, like thick silk or something. The finish lasts forever – warm tart berries and green, newly snapped twigs.

This is, flat-out, the best Zin I’ve ever had at this price range. It’s not the cheapest thing out there, sure, but it’s huge. It has FLAVORS. Like, LOTS OF THEM. AND I LIKE THEM ALL.

And then Tony brought me a freshly baked brownie, and it was so wonderful I let him have a sip.

___________________________________________________________________________________________ *I’m not ever sure about adding ratings, because they’re all biased and based on the tastes of whomever it is doing the rating. This is why I don’t provide my own ratings – I’m content to tell you what it tastes like (to me) and whether or not I personally liked it. Just because I like or don’t like a wine (or beer) doesn’t mean your taste has to be the same, or that mine is somehow better just because I’m the one spending my time writing.

Besides, terminology gets wonky – it’s definitely individual. For example, here’s Parker’s quote about this Zin: “This hugely popular wine spends 12 months in both French and American oak. Sexy and endearing, it offers a deep ruby/purple color, full-bodied, corpulent flavors and abundant berry fruit, pepper and spice notes. Drink this seductive, full throttle, classic Zinfandel over the next several years.”

Corpulent.

I mean, drinking the wine, I get what he means, but it would never occur to me to use “corpulent” to describe a wine. Then again, I’m prone to announcing I have a crush on particular wines, or that certain wines strike me as “purple” in flavor and what not, so it’s not like I’m cornering the market in comprehensibility here.

That all being said, I have to agree with him on one point: this wine really is sexy.